The Arkansaw traveler., 1887-09-17
Compiled for The Arkdnsaw Trdveter. SCIENTIFIC MISCELLANY

A DeTIIH COIIlpdHy OueTS eleCtTlCIIE for boiling water, and other heating purposes, as well as for lighting.
 The Argentine Republic is soon to have weather bureau equipped with forty-fve observatories in different parts of the country.
 By means of an air-gun, Prof. c. l.. Mees has found that to drive straws into pine boards and hickory bark, as is often done by tornadoes, velocity of 150 to 175 miles an hour is neces- sary.
 A French horticulturist, Count de Buysson, ensures the growth of seeds so old as to have doubtful germina- ting power by soaking them for thirty-six hours in water containing a little guano Cr other source of ni- trogen.
 An increase ill the demand for mica has resulted from its use for electrical purposes, and special machinery has been devised for getting out the min- eral. Electricians usually select the whitest kinds, some colored micas having so much iron that their insu- lating property is affected.
 At least 10000 preserved humming birds are now embraced in the col lection in the British Museum. The finest collection on this side of the Atlantic, containing about 1000 spec linens, has been presented by Mr. D. G, Elliot to the American Museum of Natural History in New York.
 An Oxford meteorologist seeks to prove that the European and Ameri- can magnetic poles are coincident with the centres of greatest cold for the two continents, and that the shifting of the magnetic poles is due to the same series of astronomical and geo. logical causes which produce the sec- ular changes in climate.
 NATURES SEED SowING.-The woody melon- shaped fruit of the sand box tree of the West Indies is made into neat box by saving off the top and scooping out the seeds and is used in Barbadoes for holding sand. When, however, the fruit is allowed to ripen on the tree, it bursts explosively, scat tering the seeds over the ground. An perimenting naturalist recently sought to preserve specimen of the fruit by drying carefully, but it ex- ploded with such violence as to de- stroy the box containing it.
 TIME FOR MAR1NERs.-The plan of accurate time from sea- coasts was first adopted by Great Britain about thirty years ago. That coun- try now has on it's coasts fourteen time balls and five other time-signals, and its colonies and dependencies have twenty-si six time- balls; Germany has seven time balls; France, four time balls and two other time-signals; Sweden and Norway, Austria Hun gary, Holland with Belgium, and the United States, have five time balls l each; Denmark has two; Spain and Portugal, one each Italy, none.
 STRENGTH OF HEATED METALS Some interesting experiments on the effects of heating on the strength and of metals used for machines and structures were recently made at the Royal Dockyard, Portsmouth, England. All bronzes showed reg ular, but not serious, decrease of strength and ductility up to certain is between 300 and 400 degrees for ordinary gun metals-be- yond which the strength suddenly drops to about one half. and the duc- tility vanishes. Phosphor- bronze pre- serves two-thirds of its strength and one-third of its ductility up to 800 degrees Fahrenheit; and Muntz metal and pure copper are also fairly satis- factory in these respects. Wrought iron gains in strength up to 500 de- grecs but loses in ductility up to 300 degrees, after which it gains. Open- hearth steel is not affected in strength by a temperature of 800 degrees, but its ductility is reduced i.alf.
 CoCA CULTURE.-Coca, shrub growing wild on the mountains of Peru and Bolivia, is coming into ex- tensive cultivation on account of the rapidly increasing demand for cocaine, the principal alkaloid obtained from us leaves. The plant resembles the tea plant, is cultivated in rows like Indian corn, and in two years attains it's full height of five or six feet, bearing leaves about two inches long, with white blossoms and red berries. The leaves are gathered several times year, and the bushes produce for many years. The peculiar virtues of coca as nerve stimulant have long been known, not only to medical men, but to the Pc ruvian Indians and miners, who chew the leaves mixed with quick lime, much as tobacco is chewed, and who are thus enabled to resist fatigue to a degree. It was not until 1860, however, that the active prin- ciple was isolated, while the great value of cocaine as local anaesthetic was accidentally discovered only some three years ago.